NUMBER TEN
BATHS: CERULEAN
While some music sounds timeless, as if it could come from any era (see: Cosentino, Bethany), some music is inextricably linked to the time it was created. Cerulean, the debut LP from Will Wiesenfeld's Baths project, could only have been conceived, written, and created in modern music. Brian Eno and Aphex Twin and J Dilla and the Postal Service and Flying Lotus before we can get to the point of "Hall" or "Maximalist," where ambient, hip-hop, melancholy electro-pop, and killer breakbeats come together in the service of fragile love songs that still make your shoulder lean back and your head nod. Wiesenfeld has been doing this damn thing for awhile, and the experience in a group like [Post-Foetus] shows through on Cerulean. The strange conjecture of styles and emotions isn't a happy accident, it's a labored, intensive process that somehow still pulls off sounding wrought and relaxed, tense and cathartic.
Peep numbers nine through one after the jump.
NUMBER NINE
ZOLA JESUS: STRIDULUM EP / VALUSIA EP
In some ways, Nika Roza Danilova's two 2010 Zola Jesus EPs couldn't be more different. On Stridulum, the Madison, WI resident crafts dreary nightmare synthscapes, where turbulent keys battle over death march drums. Her voice, a force in its own right, is like a lighthouse on the distant horizon, or through a thick fog. It's there as a landmark, but the environment around it is so violent, it's less a balm and more a tease. Valusia, on the other hand, was an EP of songs, where structure and verses and choruses appeared out of nowhere, where melodies were formed out of piano riffs as opposed to cascading atmosphere. The clouds broke on Valusia, and it became the contemplative sail to shore after a long, rough night at sea. What they shared in common was Danilova's passion, the common thread of her outstanding vocal performance, tying together the travel from darkness to light. While Stridulum and Valusia were certainly different EPs, they marked a single artist's journey.
NUMBER EIGHT
JAMES BLAKE: THE BELLS SKETCH EP / CYMK EP / KLAVIERWERKE EP
The question "So, where do you go from here?" is asked of a lot of artists. Usually, it's posited after a particularly stunning album, like ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead's Source Tags & Codes or Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The implication of the question is, "How do you follow up such a singularly impressive piece of work?" But when the question is applied to producer James Blake's trio of spectacular 2010 EPs, The Bells Sketch, CYMK, and Klavierwerke, the implication of the question becomes "Which of these individual, similarly influenced but decidedly different, and fully realized sounds do you actually carry forward to a full length?" That and, "Can you synthesize these sounds together?" "Would you want to?" "Would it be better to let CYMK's brutally and beautifully spliced R&B samples stay on its own?" "Should Klavierwerke's self-sampling be a work unto itself?" "Are there, like "Measurements" might suggest, even more directions you can cultivate a stunning work from?" Those are the questions for Blake's upcoming 2011 LP. For 2010, we get three stunning works, definitely the work of one artist, but so unique that it's amazing to consider that one guy pulled all of this off.
NUMBER SEVEN
FREDDIE GIBBS: STR8 KILLA NO FILLA
Freddie Gibbs was once on Interscope, the big kahuna of rap labels. But as all too common with major labels, be they rap or rock or pop, the truly unique talents who have their own uncompromising vision are pushed to the side. They don't know how to present them to the world. Is Gibbs a spiritual Midwestern successor to Bone Thugs & Harmony, given the ease with which he switches to and from verbose double and triple-timed rhymes? Or is he a 90s revivalist, rocking blunted West Coast beats that Tupac would have loved to slaughter? Or is he the new Nas, painting hopeless, downtrodden pictures of the life that he sees around him? Gibbs' 2010 mix tape, Str8 Killa No Filla, displayed him as all three, often all at the same time and on the same track. Check "National Anthem (Fuck the World)" that rides the chillest beat Snoop Dogg never rode, or "Oil Money"'s ugly Chronic 2001 sneer. Songs like that illustrate the fact that Gibbs is too complex to be categorized by any one label. He never stood a chance on a major.
NUMBER SIX
BIG BOI: SIR LUCIOUS LEFT FOOT: THE SON OF CHICO DUSTY
How do you listen to Sir Lucious Left Foot, the oft-delayed album from Outkast and Goodie Mob alum Big Boi, and think that it won't make money? From the moment that the beat of the "Feel Me" intro kicks into full gear, with its slammed piano notes, subwoofer demolishing bass, porno guitars, western whistles and robot R&B voices, it should have been immediately apparent that despite its aversion to traditional rap tropes, it would explode in clubs, causing asses to drop down to the dance floor. The murderer's row of tracks from "Shutterbugg"'s mechanical a cappella bass to "You Ain't No DJ"'s extraterrestrial spaceship funk represent one of the greatest four song sections on an album in recent memory, with Big Boi playing Zed to the rap game's Marsellus Wallace. "Your DJ ain't no DJ, he just make them fuckin' mixtapes/ Your DJ ain't no DJ, he just hit that instant replay," Big Boi concludes on "DJ," challenging rappers and producers alike to step their fucking game up. Sir Lucious Left Foot demanded both.
NUMBER FIVE
SLEIGH BELLS: TREATS
When "Crown on the Ground" came out late last year, it was fairly uncertain whether or not former Ruby Blue teenpop singer Alexis Krauss and ex-Poison the Well hardcore vet Derek Miller would be able to match that track's voluminous audacity for another single, much less an entire full length album. But Treats, the band's debut record, did just that. "Crown" is still the unfuckwithable crown jewel of the Treats crown, sure, but check out "Tell 'Em," the greatest Jock Jams track never made, or "Infinity Guitars"' absolutely wicked rhythmic stomp, or "Riot Rhythm"'s destructive boom bap. Treats does nothing but explode from first note to last, even in the relative calm of the excellent "Rill Rill." It claws together dissonance and distortion and overblown power and pop hooks into one violent, vibrant package of something that surpassed even the most generous optimist's opinion of what the first Sleigh Bells album would be.
NUMBER FOUR
VAMPIRE WEEKEND: CONTRA
If you don't know by now, here's a little bit of a history lesson. In 1983 a very pretty blonde girl posed for a photo in a yellow polo t-shirt. In 2009, Vampire Weekend bought it from the alleged photographer, Tom Brody, for five thousand dollars and used it as the album cover for their Contra record. Ignore the lawsuits that have followed, and instead just think about the image in representation of what Vampire Weekend are accused of representing themselves. Contra was a re-up of the band's mission statement, a stand that said they were going to remain smart, remain upper-middle class, remain Ivy League, continue pulling from Afro-pop and Western classical and American indie and they weren't going to apologize. By ignoring the backlash against their character, it freed the band to craft immaculate arrangements that synthesized all of their strengths, from Christopher Tomsen's impeccable drumming, to Rostam Batmanglij's Discovery side project electronics, into one impressive piece of music.
NUMBER THREE
TITUS ANDRONICUS: THE MONITOR
Patrick Stickles, the front man of New Jersey band Titus Andronicus, can't really sing. Check out his covers of Pulp's "Modern People" or Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" sometime. The man can barely carry a tune to save his life. Even on the opening of "No Future Part III: Escape From No Future," Stickles has a hard time staying in resonance with the simple guitar chords, but when that song upshifts into its unhinged "You will always be a loser!" coda-- which somehow becomes a triumphant rallying cry for losers everywhere-- Stickles' ability, or lack thereof, to stay in tune doesn't matter. At all. Because his voice is the perfect compliment to Titus Andronicus' music and attitude. In many ways Titus is the antithesis of Vampire Weekend. This isn't carefully arranged, even if it is carefully planned. Instead, it's sixth-gear the whole way, rocketing down the freeway with reckless abandon, shouting "The enemy is everywhere!" and "You will always be a loser!" at the top of your lungs, and believing in every word.
NUMBER TWO
THE NATIONAL: HIGH VIOLET
There's something beautiful -- triumphant, even -- in the deep sadness that proliferates High Violet. There's something defiant in its helplessness, something powerful when its characters are at their most powerless. These types of contradictions are all over High Violet. The music is alternately towering and downtrodden. Immaculately arranged string sections and horn charts create swelling ascensions and crushing declinations that decorate the band's moribund brand of indie rock. What makes these contradictions universal are the people who inhabit High Violet. They're people we see every day: college students with cousins off at war, suburbanites who have borrowed too much money, red Southern souls waiting in the New York rain and wanting to leave. Described in singer Matt Berninger's confused and obtuse language, High Violet and its inhabitants become an epic anthem for the mundane driftings of the white-collar lost, a rallying cry for the traffic-ridden morning commute. (from my Prefix Mag blurb on High Violet)
NUMBER ONE
KANYE WEST: MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY
Every year in this post-Napster age, the blogosphere blows up with a new, exciting indie sub-genre. This year, it was witch house; last year, chillwave; 2008, lo-fi revivalism. They’re all reactions to each other. Chillwave took the production values of the lo-fi revival and turned them from 70s garage rock to 80s synth pop. Witch house found chillwave too chilly or too new wave-y, so it darkened the corners and evaporated the structures, focusing on haunted house melodies and ghostly sketches of atmosphere. The point is that these sub-genres spring up like clockwork in the indie music landscape, with the response times to each new label progressively dwindling.
Sub-genres in pop music, though, are an entirely different beast. Pop and jazz dominated the American music landscape until the 1950s, when rock music came in. Digital instrumentation’s seeds were planted in the 60s, providing the fledgling backbone for dance music. Then, in the 70s, punk bloomed as a rock and roll offshoot. A decade later, rap’s roots were taking shape. Of course, there have been tons of sub-genres involved that encouraged these maturations. Miles Davis alone practically invented a dozen of jazz’s offshoots. But in the macro scope, those are the capital letter Big Changes.
This year, one album marked another Big Change; with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye West has essentially created post-rap.
The “post-” genre prefix has kind of an ambiguous meaning; post-punk and post-rock have little to do with each other, for instance. The one constant of that particular addendum has been a forward movement. The basic tools of the genre are still distinguishable, but the “post-” genre takes those tools and creates something undeniably different. Post-rock used the instrumentation of rock to create pocket epics, expanding the structures and annihilating the verse-chorus-verse form. Post-punk turned punk’s attitude and velocity as fuel for more advanced chord shapes, counterpointing the anger with dissonance. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy has taken rap’s basic tools and used them in the service of something enormous.
Rap’s had a very basic and traditional form, essentially since its inception: a back and forth between verse and chorus, with music that mirrors that and bounces between two simple melodies. In the case of some rap songs, it’s only one. Lil Wayne is the first rapper who really fucked around with this structure, most notably on Tha Carter III, but even his beats often rode a single hook. On Fantasy, Yeezy has almost completely abandoned the traditional form, and the consistently all-star producer has used his talents to create music that rap has never heard before.
The most logical way to think of Fantasy is as a stage play, written and directed by, and starring, Kanye West. It uses a variety of characters not for their own attitudes, but for how their characters reflect a facet of the author’s personality.
Each voice on Fantasy speaks to a lesson West himself has learned. Nicki Minaj stands in front of the album cover’s grand red curtain, playing an omniscient narrator, then later shows up as a monster in the dark, mirroring West’s journey from unsuspecting hero to public villain. Jay-Z becomes a disdainful elder statesman, looking down his nose at the rabble beneath him, and West use’s Jigga’s long-standing respect to speak down to all those he considers beneath him. Pusha T is untouchable and arrogant, as uncaring about public perception as West wishes he could be. On “Blame Game,” West manipulates his own voice to create a litany of characters, all wronged in the same way, but each pitch shifted modulation views it with a different amount of bile.
These morality plays are highlighted by the production, which ranges from enormous orchestral bombasity to 808s and Heartbreak-style drum machine minimalism, and the emotional moments aren’t just accompanied, but intensified by the depth of the music. The drumbeat on “All of the Lights” dances like buckshot over the layers of vocals, highlighting the anxious freneticism of the song’s main character. The orgasmic chorus of sighs that ends “Hell of a Life” undercuts West’s depressed sighs, turning meaningless porn star sex and intense depression into the same thing. And in sampling Bon Iver’s “Woods,” West lends a sense of heartache to an otherwise relentless disco-influenced beat.
Slate Magazine’s Jonah Weiner pointed out that West’s biggest strength and most glaring weakness has been his passion against perceived injustice. In that way, Fantasy’s lyrics find West at his most passionate. On “Gorgeous” alone he threatens to choke a South Park writer with a fish stick, compares his black Beatle status to being “a fucking roach,” and sneers about his Polo ads somehow making him palatable to white people, “but they would try to crack me if they ever see a black me.” “Hell of a Life” finds West’s porn star girlfriend trying to get an Oscar de La Renta dress for Oscar night, only to have the designers snatch it off her back. “How can you say they live they life wrong/ When you never fuck with the lights on?” West incredulously asks.
Every play’s hero learns a lesson. On Fantasy, as it always is with West, the lesson is less certain, more ambiguous, and more interesting because of it. What West’s character seems to be wrestling with over the course of the album is how to how to come to term with his own flaws. On “Power” West throws down his most massive boasts, but they ultimately prove empty; Yeezy actually views jumping out the window as a better option. On “Runaway” as West attempts to accept his problems at face value, the song’s three-minute, wordless outro communicates the suffering that entails. “Devil in a New Dress” finds West extending his ire outward toward a romantic interest, only to find that unfulfilling. It’s only on “Blame Game,” when West experiences firsthand the consequences of his denials, that he finally seems to come to terms with himself. “Lost in the World” finds West admitting his fears, but still being “down for the night.”
Over the course of the last year, Kanye West faced some of the most intense public scrutiny that a modern pop music figure has encountered. After Taylor Swift, West took a Hawaiian sabbatical. Given time to meditate, West came out of his seclusion with an album that represents two things: Firstly, a spiritual journey that mirrors West’s own, from hero to villain to a man who has to accept the fact that he’s both. And secondly, the first post-rap album, where the essential basics of rap have been warped, distorted, melted and scraped into an incomparable epic. (from my Audiosuede feature on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy)
Sub-genres in pop music, though, are an entirely different beast. Pop and jazz dominated the American music landscape until the 1950s, when rock music came in. Digital instrumentation’s seeds were planted in the 60s, providing the fledgling backbone for dance music. Then, in the 70s, punk bloomed as a rock and roll offshoot. A decade later, rap’s roots were taking shape. Of course, there have been tons of sub-genres involved that encouraged these maturations. Miles Davis alone practically invented a dozen of jazz’s offshoots. But in the macro scope, those are the capital letter Big Changes.
This year, one album marked another Big Change; with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye West has essentially created post-rap.
The “post-” genre prefix has kind of an ambiguous meaning; post-punk and post-rock have little to do with each other, for instance. The one constant of that particular addendum has been a forward movement. The basic tools of the genre are still distinguishable, but the “post-” genre takes those tools and creates something undeniably different. Post-rock used the instrumentation of rock to create pocket epics, expanding the structures and annihilating the verse-chorus-verse form. Post-punk turned punk’s attitude and velocity as fuel for more advanced chord shapes, counterpointing the anger with dissonance. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy has taken rap’s basic tools and used them in the service of something enormous.
Rap’s had a very basic and traditional form, essentially since its inception: a back and forth between verse and chorus, with music that mirrors that and bounces between two simple melodies. In the case of some rap songs, it’s only one. Lil Wayne is the first rapper who really fucked around with this structure, most notably on Tha Carter III, but even his beats often rode a single hook. On Fantasy, Yeezy has almost completely abandoned the traditional form, and the consistently all-star producer has used his talents to create music that rap has never heard before.
The most logical way to think of Fantasy is as a stage play, written and directed by, and starring, Kanye West. It uses a variety of characters not for their own attitudes, but for how their characters reflect a facet of the author’s personality.
Each voice on Fantasy speaks to a lesson West himself has learned. Nicki Minaj stands in front of the album cover’s grand red curtain, playing an omniscient narrator, then later shows up as a monster in the dark, mirroring West’s journey from unsuspecting hero to public villain. Jay-Z becomes a disdainful elder statesman, looking down his nose at the rabble beneath him, and West use’s Jigga’s long-standing respect to speak down to all those he considers beneath him. Pusha T is untouchable and arrogant, as uncaring about public perception as West wishes he could be. On “Blame Game,” West manipulates his own voice to create a litany of characters, all wronged in the same way, but each pitch shifted modulation views it with a different amount of bile.
These morality plays are highlighted by the production, which ranges from enormous orchestral bombasity to 808s and Heartbreak-style drum machine minimalism, and the emotional moments aren’t just accompanied, but intensified by the depth of the music. The drumbeat on “All of the Lights” dances like buckshot over the layers of vocals, highlighting the anxious freneticism of the song’s main character. The orgasmic chorus of sighs that ends “Hell of a Life” undercuts West’s depressed sighs, turning meaningless porn star sex and intense depression into the same thing. And in sampling Bon Iver’s “Woods,” West lends a sense of heartache to an otherwise relentless disco-influenced beat.
Slate Magazine’s Jonah Weiner pointed out that West’s biggest strength and most glaring weakness has been his passion against perceived injustice. In that way, Fantasy’s lyrics find West at his most passionate. On “Gorgeous” alone he threatens to choke a South Park writer with a fish stick, compares his black Beatle status to being “a fucking roach,” and sneers about his Polo ads somehow making him palatable to white people, “but they would try to crack me if they ever see a black me.” “Hell of a Life” finds West’s porn star girlfriend trying to get an Oscar de La Renta dress for Oscar night, only to have the designers snatch it off her back. “How can you say they live they life wrong/ When you never fuck with the lights on?” West incredulously asks.
Every play’s hero learns a lesson. On Fantasy, as it always is with West, the lesson is less certain, more ambiguous, and more interesting because of it. What West’s character seems to be wrestling with over the course of the album is how to how to come to term with his own flaws. On “Power” West throws down his most massive boasts, but they ultimately prove empty; Yeezy actually views jumping out the window as a better option. On “Runaway” as West attempts to accept his problems at face value, the song’s three-minute, wordless outro communicates the suffering that entails. “Devil in a New Dress” finds West extending his ire outward toward a romantic interest, only to find that unfulfilling. It’s only on “Blame Game,” when West experiences firsthand the consequences of his denials, that he finally seems to come to terms with himself. “Lost in the World” finds West admitting his fears, but still being “down for the night.”
Over the course of the last year, Kanye West faced some of the most intense public scrutiny that a modern pop music figure has encountered. After Taylor Swift, West took a Hawaiian sabbatical. Given time to meditate, West came out of his seclusion with an album that represents two things: Firstly, a spiritual journey that mirrors West’s own, from hero to villain to a man who has to accept the fact that he’s both. And secondly, the first post-rap album, where the essential basics of rap have been warped, distorted, melted and scraped into an incomparable epic. (from my Audiosuede feature on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy)
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